I was at JJ's today, and withing a few moments of opening the boot, was accosted by a very rude woman demanding that I pay her for river use and parking.

1) There are two signs in the car park, one at the bottom of the hill and one by the brick ramp .
The title was "reception" written largely at the top in green, and in small letters at the bottom of the board, "£3 charge for use of facilities" with a few bits of inconsequential information in between.
I honestly did not notice the fee as it was at the bottom of the board, and just assumed the sign was to direct tourists for the rafting, or to a cafe etc? and It was not at all prominent.

2) There are no facilities as far as I saw, cafe, showers etc. And is the building not condemed as unsafe?
The river is not maintained, overhanging trees etc. Also the car park has more pot holes than ever!

SO:
What exactly are we being charged for again?
Was this fight not resolved? It has been going on for as long as I can remember!

From what I understood when going there this weekend its a launching fee, we just parked our van there and I double checked with the lady and she said that it was fine. She only wanted money if people were getting on the river.

The Chuckster wrote:Did you pay the money. I would of asked her who she was and who she represented and then asked her for proof that she owned the land and where the parking charges were clearly stated.

To be honest I was compleatly caught off guard, and more than a little taken aback by her attitude.

No I did not pay, for the reasons that are stated in my last post.
1) They have no ownership rights over the water.
2)If they want to charge for parking, centre and bank use ,fine. BUT I expect that for the fee, a portion of the money is spent on maintaining the site (so that my car doesn't bottom out on the way down the hill due to massive pot holes) and not only lining their pockets!

What are their rights?
Could they clamp my car?
Are they able to refuse access from the site to the river if I dont pay?
Are they able to charge people who are just running through the section while doing the Dee as a whole section? (I have heard of this being argued in the past)

If they own the land and there is no established right of way they can ask you to leave. They can charge you to park however badly maintained the site is. If you don't pay they can pursue you through the civil courts, although this is unlikely. They could however close and lock gate, effectively impounding your car, and I don't think that there's much you can do about that without risking charges of criminal damage.

izzie4037 wrote:Could they clamp my car?

No, clamping is no longer allowed by civilians

izzie4037 wrote:Are they able to refuse access from the site to the river if I dont pay?

If there is no public right of way over the land then they can request that you leave, and if you don't then I think that technically you are trespassing. However, given that there is an old slipway into the river to the upstream section of the site, I suspect that a public right of way has been established in which case I don't think that they can stop you from accessing the river.

£3 would get you about 15 minutes of parking in Kensington, a small latte on oxford street, or half a pint of shandy on Leicester Square. If the payee is the owner and it's not a scam, I think that it's fair enough for them to charge for parking.

izzie4037 wrote:Are they able to charge people who are just running through the section while doing the Dee as a whole section? (I have heard of this being argued in the past)

No. Land owners have no ownership of the water so there is no basis on which they can charge.

NathanE wrote:They could however close and lock gate, effectively impounding your car, and I don't think that there's much you can do about that without risking charges of criminal damage.

Not sure if they can they even do that these days? If they did, without clear notification, they might be leaving themselves wide open to legal action in return.

If you think about it, this is essentially how most commercial car park operations work. There is an exit gate/barrier which is only opened when you pay. Many car parks also close overnight. If it's their land, and there's no public right of way on it, you have left property there without permission, or even directly refused to pay a requested fee/leave as requested by the owner, if they happen to secure their property and you and your car get stuck, then I think you've very little room to argue.

Personally I reckon that jjs is so convenient as a drop off/access point saving lugging gear etc, that £3 for a day's entertainment doesn't seem like a bad deal to me.

I wonder how many of us would be happy letting anyone just turn up and park, change, unload etc on our drive/garden?

I think most paddlers visiting this area are happy to have somewhere safe to leave cars and boats rather than leave them in the town where many boats have been stolen recently. Ok your boat can't be stolen while your in it but how many of us leave a spare boat or kit in the car or van. Three quid seems a fair price to me.

The owner of the site or his lessee must be entitled to charge for parking of vehicles. There is no possible basis for disputing this. The suggestion in an earlier post that there could be an established right to launch boats from the site without the landowners permission is almost as thin an argument in my opinion.

Also google "Mile End Mill Trust" for up to date information about Mike Dalton's plans for the site.

Make you wonder who the person was going round telling people they could not paddle on the river that was reported earlier in the year. rumour was that is was not a fishing interest but a paddling one....

Tothy wrote:I think most paddlers visiting this area are happy to have somewhere safe to leave cars and boats rather than leave them in the town where many boats have been stolen recently. Ok your boat can't be stolen while your in it but how many of us leave a spare boat or kit in the car or van. Three quid seems a fair price to me.

That would be fine if your car was secure, but I doubt it, and suspect that there will be small print saying that any vehicle was parked at the owners risk?

We went to the Dee the other week to introduce some of the kids in our club to some different moving water - they usually train on the River Goyt. The plan was to have a two hour session at the mill.

On arrival we saw the signs with the £3 per person fee. With 7 kids and 3 supporting adults, £30 seemed a bit excessive. Rather than walk away, we decided to go in and have a chat to find out what we could arrange for our club moving forward - maybe a reduction for not for profit clubs, half day rate, or a concession rate for juniors.

The lady we spoke to wasn’t receptive to any of this, and the policy was clear “The fee is to cover costs for accessing the river and facilities i.e. changing rooms, parking, access points, river development & maintenance” and that “we would be happy to pay to get on at the Tryweryn”* In any case she said that she would phone her boss to see if there was anything they could do for us.

“Sorry, it’s £3 each. That’s the policy”

At this point we told her that we couldn’t go ahead with the session as planned, and would get on further up river. We were told that if we did this we wouldn’t be allowed access to the river bank on both sides, when we passed through the MEM site. We indicated that we wouldn’t need to, thanked her for her time and left.

We drove up to the Chain Bridge Hotel and accessed at the bottom of the Tail. We had a fantastic run down, enjoyed by all, and egressed at the eddy, river right, above Town Falls.

Pretty short sighted view IMO. With a little flexibility, they would have done okay out of us that day. Okay, not big bucks, but for a small reduction, we had parents on the bank who would have used the cafe, and 10 tired and cold paddlers who would have appreciated a hot chocolate when we got off and, more importantly, maybe forged a good relationship with a club with over 250 members.
In the end, and as usual, we finished with lunch in the Corn Mill.

I'm not sure what the eventual plan is for the Mill, but hope it's not relying on income from paddlers to finance it.

BTW, parking at Chain Bridge upper car park is free. Parking in LLangollen town is £3.50 per day

*Wouldn’t you think that they would know what the fee is for at the Tryweryn if there’re citing it as justification for charging.

Another option is to park in the car park behind the Ponsonby Arms pub in the town, which is where you would probably get out after running the town falls. Parking here I think was £1 for 4 hours or £3.50 all day.

Charging for access sets all sorts of precedents that we don't want, as paddlers.

However, charging for facilities is another matter. Yes, park at your own risk but the car park appears to be actively monitored, a loo, changing room, it's dry and warm, staff who will go out of their way to look after you if bad things happen and a site that has been developed - if a bit tatty at the moment - what's unfair about 3 quid ?

the Mile End Mill trust is now apparently out of the picture and the site is now leased from Mike Dalton by a new company which is charging for parking/access/egress and has installed a lockable gate across the slip road. it seems that on some weekday summer evenings the site may be locked and closed at 5.30 so unless you are planning to run through from the Tail to the town you may want to check with the site before travelling.

Andy Povey The site is now rented by white water active, who have installed the gate due to "fly tipping" costing £1500 to remove rubbish, and also it was getting used as a "dogging hotspot"... Apparently .....The gate is open till 10pm on a Monday and 5:30pm every other night. The charge is not for river access but for the facilities ie changing room, toilets and first aid facilities (defibrillator) if needed.
On Wednesday night when we were asked to leave the car park at 5:30 a discussion with them reviled this. After half an hr discussion the car park was full so they left it open for us, after seeing how many people turned up in the evenings I can see evenings being charged soon.......!!!